4X The Unsurpassed Brian Reynolds' Alpha Centauri thread

[Blake00]

Old official Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire wallpapers on CivFanatics..
https://www.reddit.com/r/civfanatics/comments/1j7s9fc/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri_and_alien_crossfire/

examples..

 

[Silva]

Those are awesome and very evocative. Interesting how this game manages to be a better piece of sci-fi than 90% of hollywood flicks.

Btw, never noticed the Cha Dawn cult looked like some hindi namaste fellas.. cool

 

[Silva]

Hey folks, take a look at "Terraformers", a 3X game about colonizing Mars that released in 2023. It seems some thematic cues from Alpha Centauri and is criminally underrated for how good it is.

 

[Hellraiser]

It seems some thematic cues from Alpha Centauri and is criminally underrated for how good it is.

Probably because the go to bible on martian colonization/terraforming that every game dealing with such borrows a lot from is Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, which itself also inspired SMAC in multiple ways. It is even mentioned in the manual on the reading list page (page 229).

 

[false Kalin]

So we were discussing some mod-changes for the next SMAX game in the PMs of the old game, decided to take this idea out of it:

Question: Has any modder ever made or tried soft colony popullation caps instead of a hard one?
I remember having an idea for soft colony pop caps instead of a hard one. Like, if you go above the Hab cap, your colony becomes a polluted, discontent hellhole, the classic dystopic hellhole city from sci-fi. Lots of drones, +inefficiency, +pollution, etc.

I think that could be an interesting way to portray colony population caps. Imagine a high-police faction like Hive or Sparta using their greater police power to keep large masses of downtoddren opressed. Or factions like the Peacekeepers and Free Drones being able to go over the cap a bit because they're better at keeping the plebs happy.

It would have to be done in such a way that it's possible but very hard to go over the cap, so that most of the time, it isn't worth it.

Back in the day, Will to Power (?) mod had a feature where you could exceed your population cap but doing so would add would add a GROWTH penalty. So your base is size 7 and you have normal GROWTH. Size 8 and you have -1 GROWTH. Size 9 and -2 GROWTH. Of course, when you finally reach -2 GROWTH, that's a hard lock. This mechanic isn't what you're describing but it's not as arbitrary as the vanilla mechanic.

 

[Average Manatee]

A big problem with balancing SMAC around unruly pops is that specialists are always forced to not be drones, so as long as you have the food you can just run 100% specialists. This turns massive oversupply of food and pops into a purely positive thing.

This is why the most "efficient" base layout in terms of output per footprint is a 2x2 square with 2 condensor farms (crawled) and 1 borehole (worked), with every pop past the first being a specialist.

 

[false Kalin]

Yes, instead of rioting, would be better design if drones just ate nutrients, damaged science and econ, made you more vulnerable to probe, increased production costs, etc. And you wouldn't be able to turn them into specialists with a click.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

So we were discussing some mod-changes for the next SMAX game in the PMs of the old game, decided to take this idea out of it:

Question: Has any modder ever made or tried soft colony popullation caps instead of a hard one?
I remember having an idea for soft colony pop caps instead of a hard one. Like, if you go above the Hab cap, your colony becomes a polluted, discontent hellhole, the classic dystopic hellhole city from sci-fi. Lots of drones, +inefficiency, +pollution, etc.

I think that could be an interesting way to portray colony population caps. Imagine a high-police faction like Hive or Sparta using their greater police power to keep large masses of downtoddren opressed. Or factions like the Peacekeepers and Free Drones being able to go over the cap a bit because they're better at keeping the plebs happy.

It would have to be done in such a way that it's possible but very hard to go over the cap, so that most of the time, it isn't worth it.

Back in the day, Will to Power (?) mod had a feature where you could exceed your population cap but doing so would add would add a GROWTH penalty. So your base is size 7 and you have normal GROWTH. Size 8 and you have -1 GROWTH. Size 9 and -2 GROWTH. Of course, when you finally reach -2 GROWTH, that's a hard lock. This mechanic isn't what you're describing but it's not as arbitrary as the vanilla mechanic.

Oooh, that's nice! This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about! I think it would really help some factions, especially Morganites with their itty-bitty colonies and the growth-deprived ones.

I wonder if you could tweak this feature to change other per-city social engineering effects instead. Say, make it give -EFFIC. -EFFIC might be an incredible penalty because it hurts Energy, Science AND PSI, so EFFIC hits mean that psi is going down as well.

A big problem with balancing SMAC around unruly pops is that specialists are always forced to not be drones, so as long as you have the food you can just run 100% specialists. This turns massive oversupply of food and pops into a purely positive thing.

This is why the most "efficient" base layout in terms of output per footprint is a 2x2 square with 2 condensor farms (crawled) and 1 borehole (worked), with every pop past the first being a specialist.

True. Civ IV did well in that regard my making discontent citizens pretty much go "Fuck this", AFAIK you couldn't order them around in that state.
You just reminded me how much ICS is pure cancer.
We did some changes in Will to Power to nerf this shit into the ground, let's see if it will do it.

 

[Silva]

It seems some thematic cues from Alpha Centauri and is criminally underrated for how good it is.

Probably because the go to bible on martian colonization/terraforming that every game dealing with such borrows a lot from is Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, which itself also inspired SMAC in multiple ways. It is even mentioned in the manual on the reading list page (page 229).

Yup, I just found a reddit post where one of Terraformers' dev admits that Mars Trilogy was the main inspiration.

Now I want to read it. Thanks for bringing it up Hellraiser.

 

[false Kalin]

Oooh, that's nice! This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about! I think it would really help some factions, especially Morganites with their itty-bitty colonies and the growth-deprived ones.

I wonder if you could tweak this feature to change other per-city social engineering effects instead. Say, make it give -EFFIC. -EFFIC might be an incredible penalty because it hurts Energy, Science AND PSI, so EFFIC hits mean that psi is going down as well.

This is a much better idea than a GROWTH modifier. You should contact the mod author. He's around. The only consideration is that, if you do it this way, it makes sense to have a mechanic to deliberately limit base growth of individual bases past a certain point. This is SMAC, so there should be tradeoffs.

All that being said, I still think SMAC's assumption that populations just... grow... to be pretty outdated in a world where every competent population is collapsing from lack of fertility. Democracy makes you have more children? Planned economics? Totalitarian chinkism? Lol, c'mon man!

Believers are the faction that should have the GROWTH bonus and Fundamentalism is the appropriate Politics tier. The other one shouldn't be in economics. It would fit best in Power because if your faction values being strong more than increasing knowledge or accumulating possessions that's more likely to lead to patriarchal (large) family formation.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

This is a much better idea than a GROWTH modifier. You should contact the mod author. He's around. The only consideration is that, if you do it this way, it makes sense to have a mechanic to deliberately limit base growth of individual bases past a certain point. This is SMAC, so there should be tradeoffs.

Which mod, tho? You said you didn't remember which mod did it.

I was thinking more than one effect on social engineering. Say, GROWTH and EFFIC penalties. Maybe POLICE too, but my idea was that more POLICE would help in that regard. Essentially, without a Hab Complex or the like, your colony becomes a dystopic Hive City, like somesort of Space Kowloon.

All that being said, I still think SMAC's assumption that populations just... grow... to be pretty outdated in a world where every competent population is collapsing from lack of fertility. Democracy makes you have more children? Planned economics? Totalitarian chinkism? Lol, c'mon man!

True. Through you do have to remember that the world of SMAC is different from ours.

Even then, SMAC populations are fairly small, AFAIK every population point = 10k people. It's actually kinda weird when a large population late in the game has a few millions population and is somehow polluting enough to doom the world, even through something like ten million is chump change compared to the kind of populations a world can systain.

I think SMAC is also built on a lot of 80s-90s tropes, which is why you have the assumption populations just grown.

I agree that Democracy giving more growth is a bit weird. Planned doing that makes more sense.

Hive having large grown makes sense in light of Mao's pro-fertility campaigns and the fact life in the Hive seems pretty sparse and ascetic. Hive is the "Quantity > Quality" and "Harmony Above All" Eastern Chinkoid Horde faction, after all. They would be absolutely vile if Sheng-ji Yang didn't actually make some pretty cool points in his quote.

Believers are the faction that should have the GROWTH bonus and Fundamentalism is the appropriate Politics tier. The other one shouldn't be in economics. It would fit best in Power because if your faction values being strong more than increasing knowledge or accumulating possessions that's more likely to lead to patriarchal (large) family formation.

You know, Believers having a Growth bonus would actually make more sense.
The thing with Fundie is that its the big WAR Politics choice. Then again, does anyone aside Believers and an earlier rusher Sparta run fundie? It gimps your research pretty bad.

POWER having more growth is an interesting idea, but again you hit the problem of POWER being a pure war-focused choice.

Another big issue is that almost all options do "2 bonuses, 1 penalty", with the exception being Free Market because it's so damn good.

 

[false Kalin]

This is a much better idea than a GROWTH modifier. You should contact the mod author. He's around. The only consideration is that, if you do it this way, it makes sense to have a mechanic to deliberately limit base growth of individual bases past a certain point. This is SMAC, so there should be tradeoffs.

Which mod, tho? You said you didn't remember which mod did it.

I think it was Will to Power mod.

I was thinking more than one effect on social engineering. Say, GROWTH and EFFIC penalties. Maybe POLICE too, but my idea was that more POLICE would help in that regard. Essentially, without a Hab Complex or the like, your colony becomes a dystopic Hive City, like somesort of Space Kowloon.

Perhaps not a GROWTH penalty but then again I don't think increases in base size should be linked to nutrient intake in the first place. We're not simulating a bronze age Malthusian system like CivII did. There's plenty of food. Growth is limited willingness to reproduce, not by external factors. Also like the idea that PSYCH doesn't just represent happiness but also raw talent. So POLICE doesn't turn drones into workers; it doesn't make the unhappy into the happy. Instead POLICE mitigates the penalties for having too much population. You keep Space Kowloon from becoming Space Favela by patrolling it.

Even then, SMAC populations are fairly small, AFAIK every population point = 10k people. It's actually kinda weird when a large population late in the game has a few millions population and is somehow polluting enough to doom the world, even through something like ten million is chump change compared to the kind of populations a world can systain.

Sounds right. You only see the number when you butcher a conquered base. I prefer a 1k value per population because it's easier to imagine the UNITY bringing 16k colonists than 160k. Either way, it doesn't feel like enough for major pollution, but we can get around this if we imagine Planet's ecosystem is much more fragile than earth's and that the human colonists, just by thinking, are causing a kind of psychic pollution to bleed into the fungal networks.

You know, Believers having a Growth bonus would actually make more sense.
The thing with Fundie is that its the big WAR Politics choice. Then again, does anyone aside Believers and an earlier rusher Sparta run fundie? It gimps your research pretty bad.

POWER having more growth is an interesting idea, but again you hit the problem of POWER being a pure war-focused choice.

Another big issue is that almost all options do "2 bonuses, 1 penalty", with the exception being Free Market because it's so damn good.

The SMAC social engineering system, from a gameplay/mechanics system, works great how it already is. The only reason to change it would be because you don't think it accurately simulates reality.

 

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

Howdy, everyone.
A clarification on WTP features.

Soft pop limit
Some time ago I have been experimenting with soft pop limit. Every pop beyond the limit would decrease base GROWTH rating until it reaches -3 and base stagnates. That allows bases to grow even bigger with high SE GROWTH rating.
Corresponding population limit facility eliminates this penalty allowing normal growth.
Same population limit facility would also increase base GROWTH rating if population is below limit. Thus giving an incentive building it at any time and not only to cross the limit.
The feature is discontinued as I found the math behind it too complex for average player to comprehend and use properly.
Can be reintroduced in some other shape with simple enough mechanics. Could affect other variables as well, like EFFIC proposed above. Should be no big deal to implement.

Specialists fix
In the latest mod versions specialists are no longer replacing drones. Creating a specialist by itself does not make drone go away. This completely fixes drone-specialist exploit and give specialists their designed purpose: to replace extremely poor worker yield.
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker-doer/blob/master/README.md#base-psych
https://github.com/tnevolin/thinker...ecialists-do-not-affect-happiness-computation

 

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

I have created a mod discord since last time I visited this forum. Encouraging everyone to join and hold discussion there. Reports, question, and suggestions are welcome!
https://discord.gg/65Zxs5fVjT

There are also Thinker and general SMACX discords there as well if anyone is interested.

 

[Alpha Centauri Bear]

WtP is the real deal, the author has math skills, cool ideas and is able to disassembe binary and replace vanilla functions to implement them by himself, like Inducti0 and Scient.
He even made some small improvements to Thinker features in addition to new features, some were merged back into Thinker, some are exclusive to the WtP for now.
It's just a bit too eclectic with changes for the sake of changing for my taste, but fortunately 90% of what it does is optional, if you find your way around alphax.txt and mods ini file.

Thank you for nice words. Just saw it here while browsing the use of my mod in internet.
I am too not too keen of changes for the sake of changes. The big amount them you see is a tribute to multi year project and to people demands. If I would not use Occam's Razor to block all stupid/unwarranted ideas, you will see hundreds more.


Seriously, though, I am always on a lookout for simplification and/or ease of use. Feel free (and I will appreciate it) to list all changes you are concerned about with your opinion to whether they should be there and what their default values should be, etc.

That applies to everybody, of course. Please do not be shy. This project is moving only because of constant feedback.
Better yet, join the discord and continue discussion there if convenient.

 

[Induktio]

Recently Thinker Mod version 5.0 was released that also fixes the Windows 11 update 24H2 crash issue. The patch has been tested on multiple systems and seems to have no side effects. For other details on the release check the changelog. There has been a couple of smaller updates to the mod since then on develop builds, most notably optional higher altitude limit on the maps. There are more information and screenshots about it on the forum thread.

• Thinker Mod website
• Forum thread
• Discord link

 

[Catacombs]

Someone made a print of the SMAC map.

 

[Average Manatee]

 

[Morgoth]

1960s - 1990s Sci-Fi was so imaginative.

 

[Trithne]

I decided to start a Gaian game and it's been ages, I'd forgotten how fucking bullshit Mindworm capture from turn 1 was.

 

[Cael]

I decided to start a Gaian game and it's been ages, I'd forgotten how fucking bullshit Mindworm capture from turn 1 was.

Did you look at the %age chance of capture with Planet +1?

And it is still BS OP as hell...

 

[index.php]

I’ve found a simple patch for the Windows 11 24H2 update crash issue for anyone who doesn’t want to use the Thinker mod: https://github.com/nathan-baggs/Adamite/releases